


Home for the Holidays

by Miri Cleo (miri_cleo)



Category: Star Trek: Discovery
Genre: Badass Katrina Cornwell, Coming In Pants, Cunnilingus, F/M, Fake/Pretend Relationship, Fingerfucking, Friends With Benefits, Friendship/Love, Holidays, POV Gabriel Lorca, POV Katrina Cornwell, POV Third Person Limited, Pre-Canon, Slow Dancing, Starfleet Academy, Vaginal Fingering, Vaginal Sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-02
Updated: 2021-03-02
Packaged: 2021-03-15 07:14:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,783
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29804838
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/miri_cleo/pseuds/Miri%20Cleo
Summary: One of thebenefitsof friends with benefits is not dating, but Kat finds herself pretending to be Gabriel's girlfriend for the winter break anyway.
Relationships: Katrina Cornwell/Gabriel Lorca
Comments: 1
Kudos: 14





	Home for the Holidays

**Author's Note:**

  * For [GlassesOfJustice](https://archiveofourown.org/users/GlassesOfJustice/gifts).



Kat was sprawled on the bed on her stomach, absently chewing the end of a stylus as she put the finishing touches on one of her final projects. Gabriel had been at his desk, but she heard him crack his back before getting up. Soon after, Kat felt his weight beside her, then his fingers on her hips, underneath her shirt. And before he could get his lips on the back of her neck, she nudged him with her foot. 

"No sex while I'm working." It wasn't exactly a rule they always stuck to. 

"You've been done with that for hours."

Kat eyed him over her shoulder, thinking he might attempt plucking the padd out of her hands. She thought he'd learned his lesson the first and only time he'd done that sometime in their second year when she'd put him on the floor with a dislocated shoulder. Instead he started to knead her lower back with his knuckles. She raised her eyebrows, but he just shrugged. Kat wasn't going to argue; or refuse. His hands were magic in ways that constantly surprised her. 

But Gabriel was right: she'd been working on it for hours, and the finishing touches were superfluous at this point. Kat signed off, turning it in to be graded before tossing the padd onto the bedside table. She stretched forward, burying her arms underneath the pillow, sighing as her head nestled into it and Gabriel walked his knuckles up her back. 

"You're feeling charitable," she said suspiciously. 

There was always something musical about the way Gabriel chuckled. "You never just let me be nice to you."

"That's because you're never _just_ nice to me."

"Uh huh." He pressed his thumbs into the pressure points at the base of her skull, and Kat's eyes fluttered closed as she moaned. "Well," he murmured as he began to kiss her neck, "if I'd known that's all it took to get you to moan like that, I would have started doing this a long time ago."

Kat rolled over, turning into his kiss. It was unusually tender, or if she examined it, she knew she might find that she was unusually tired. She put her hand between his legs to cup his erection, knowing he'd be at least half hard by now. "Doesn't take much for you either."

"You've known that for a while." They both smiled as Kat undid his fly. She started to stroke him hard. "Was that your last one?"

"Mmhm. Have you had any grades come in yet?" Kat asked. He was hard now, and his cock was dripping in her fingers, but this was a little game they played. Sometimes they made bets, proffered consequences if the recipient of the attention could no longer keep up the thread of the conversation. Sometimes they simply started with an unspoken understanding, like that night. 

"Haven't looked." His eyes were bright with mischief and unvoiced laughter. 

"Liar," Kat teased.

"Am," he kissed her, "not."

"You're cheating," she said against his lips.

"I'm still talking, aren't I?" His breath hitched as she gently ran her thumb over the head of his cock. "Come home with me for Christmas."

Kat scoffed. "Who celebrates Christmas anymore?"

"My Nana, thank you very much. And don't you think it would make a one hundred and three year old woman happy on possibly one of her last Christmases if her favorite great-grandson brought home a nice girl?"

"There is no way in hell I'm going to Tennessee with you to pretend to be your girlfriend to make your great-grandmother happy." Kat couldn't believe he was still holding his erection. "We said we weren't doing this, Gabriel."

"Doing what?" He kissed her again, deeper this time, but Kat pulled away before he was ready for her too. 

She raised her eyebrows. "Home. Family. Attachment."

"One week, Kat." He swallowed and Kat could tell he was fighting his body. She increased the speed of her strokes, trying to push him over the edge, but he grabbed her wrist, pulling her hand away before he came and climbing on top of her before she could protest." A little holiday cheer. A lot of eggnog. Great sex every night."

"I can have great sex every night right here."

"Oh, no you can't," he said, kissing her jaw. 

"Is that so?"

"If I'm not here," he said, grinning as he tugged off her pants before kicking off his own, "it'll be mediocre at best, and you know it."

"You are such a shit, Gabriel Lorca."

"You know it'll be fun." 

He moved down her body, and Kat let herself relax. There was no one who had taken the time and care to learn the intimacies of what teased her, what made her squirm and moan and scream and to do so without expecting her to love them or loving her in return. He nuzzled her pussy through the thin fabric of her underwear, and even though Kat laughed, the more he pushed, opening her labia playfully with his nose, the wetter the fabric became. It was hard not to want him. 

"Say you'll come with me." He pulled at the fabric with his teeth, getting them halfway off before Kat got impatient and helped him finish. 

"Great sex every night," she said firmly, wrapping her legs around him as he pushed his cock into her. "I don't want to be bored."

"Oh, you won't be."

Kat pulled him close, whispering, "If you come before me, I'm not coming with you."

"Shit…"

He cheated. But he cheated by pulling out and using his mouth to get Kat almost there before pushing his cock into her again. By that point, Kat was so wet, she felt like even her thighs were dripping, and she didn't hold back her moan. And as nice as it would have been to tease him a little bit more, she let go, digging her heels into his hips as she finally came. 

*****

Kat had expected civilian transport. She and Gabriel had found themselves on a weekend leave or two together before, and that was always what they had taken. But that morning they'd boarded a private shuttle that was the most luxurious Kat had ever seen. She did not hesitate to laugh when the pilot referred to Gabriel as Mr. Lorca, and his glare was the perfect reward. 

Their personal lives were never off limits. That wasn't one of the rules. But they'd made a tacit agreement not to pry into their pre-academy lives, before now at least. But this piqued Kat's curiosity. Kat took one of the plush seats and there was room to curl her legs underneath her. 

"You never told me Daddy's family was rich in the twentieth century."

He smirked as he pulled out a flask. "It was Mama's, and there are still economies out there that aren't universal, so...not just the twentieth century." He offered the flask, but Kat waved him away. 

"It's barely nine in the morning, Gabriel."

"It's coffee."

"With bourbon?"

"Hair of the dog."

Kat rolled her eyes; he was suffering less from a hangover and more from lack of sleep. They'd celebrated the end of the term with friends before he'd insisted on supervising her packing efforts. It was ridiculous--the entire affair, but she was in it now. The shuttle was in the air, and Gabriel had even gotten her her own cup of coffee, sans bourbon. 

Kat stretched her arms above her head as she yawned. "Are you going to tell me what I'm walking into?"

"Where's the fun in that?"

"You're such an asshole." Kat warmed her hands, always a little cold, on her cup before taking a sip. God, even the coffee on this shuttle tasted better somehow. 

"They're nothing you can't handle. Just...don't fuck any of my cousins." Gabriel leaned forward, elbows on his knees as he looked up at her with those icy eyes. "I mean it, Kat." His _very serious_ voice was an excellent touch. 

She pursed her lips. "You're doing possessive now?"

"You're damn right I am. You're my girl for the next week and I half." He smirked. "Plus, if you did, I'd never hear the end of it."

Kat chuckled. If he was going to play possessive, she was going to outdo him playing devoted, but Gabriel was probably already anticipating that. They were quiet for most of the rest of the trip. Finding someone else who felt no need to fill the silence idly was rare, and it was one of the things Kat appreciated most about him. 

The shuttle landed on a private pad, and Kat felt mildly relieved that no one was there to greet her. But once they made the short walk to the house, she could see that the design was purposeful--an alley of trees parted to reveal a historic home with a well manicured lawn. Classical Revival if Kat had to guess; it had porches and some columns, but she was no architectural historian. 

"Is it as ridiculous inside?"

"God, no. Here, gimme your bag."

"I'm fine."

"I know you're fine, but I also don't want to hear my mother harp on me forgetting to be a gentleman. Come on…" 

She handed the Academy standard issue duffel over to him and followed him not to the front door but to the side of the house. "No butler?" Kat quipped. 

"Now you're just being ridiculous." He led her through a small mudroom and into a kitchen that retained some of the historic elements of the home--a large brick fireplace and wooden counters--while still looking like it belonged in the twenty-third century. There was a moment of quiet warmth where Kat took in how surprised she was that the room was actually inviting. 

"Gabriel!" The voice preceded the arrival of a woman, shorter than Kat and with Gabriel's dark hair, only peppered with silver. She hugged him tightly before leaning back to examine him in a gesture that was almost universal to all mothers. 

Gabriel kissed her cheek then took Kat by the hand. "Mama, this is Katrina Cornwell."

"It's a pleasure to meet you," Kat said. She was about to extend her hand when his mother enveloped her in a hug that she had no choice but to reciprocate. It allowed her a perfect view of Gabriel's smug expression. 

"The pleasure is all mine."

If Kat needed an image of what Gabe was going to look like in middle age, the man who appeared in the doorway next would be the perfect representation. She noticed the way Gabriel straightened his shoulders when what had to be his father appeared. 

"Gabriel. I trust your trip was uneventful."

"Yes, Sir." The two men shook hands warmly. 

"And you must be Katrina. Gabriel said you'd be joining us. Welcome."

"Thank you for having me." God, this was not what she wanted to be doing with her break. Dealing with her own family was enough of an ordeal, let alone dealing with someone else's. 

"Well, I'm sure you two want to freshen up," his mother said. "Gabriel, show Katrina upstairs. I'm sure you two must be hungry. I'll just see what we have."

He subtly shook his head at Kat when she merely looked like she was going to take a breath to protest, so she merely smiled and followed him out of the kitchen and into a dining room with a table set as if dinner were about to be served. It was, again, a mix of modern and antique, as was the rest of what Kat saw on the way up the staircase. 

When they got to the bedroom--Kat guessed it had been his by the collection of awards still on the shelves--he closed and locked the door behind him while she sat on the bed. 

"What? No separate bedrooms?"

"Is this some kind of, I don't know, eighteenth, nineteenth century novel?" he asked, grinning as he advanced on her, putting his arms on either side and pushing her onto her back as he kissed her. 

"Hard to say." She wrapped her arms around his neck. "Aren't we supposed to be 'freshening up'?"

He slipped his hand underneath her shirt. "I could get fresher…"

"Five minutes after meeting your parents?"

"If we go back down there right now, my mother is going to try to feed us to death," he said as he got his fingers under her bra and rolled his thumb over her nipple.

"Stop it." She made no attempt to stop him, and Gabriel had her out of her shirt and bra before she'd worked her shoes off. Undressing someone, of any gender, Kat had found, was one of his talents. And by the time she was naked, he had his head between her legs, which Kat wasn't going to argue with. 

"Fuck, Gabriel, we really shouldn't."

"Shut up, Kat," he hummed against her clit. She did, and balled the comforter in her hands, letting her eyes close. Ket let herself fall almost half asleep in the pleasure until his mother's voice pulled her rudely awake. 

"Gabriel, there's a little something in the kitchen for you two."

Kat immediately tried to push him off, but he held her hips firmly. "Be down in a minute."

"That's fine. Go see your Nana first."

"Mmhm." He let Kat go only to clap his hand over her mouth and push his cock into her. As good as it felt, as wet as she was, Kat was infuriated that he didn't trust her to keep quiet. So, she bit him. 

"Ow, shit!"

"What's that, Gabe?"

"Nothing, Mama! Down in a minute."

He waited before pulling Kat on top of him and down close to his chest. "Goddamnit, what was that about?" He thrust his hips short and hard before smacking her ass playfully. 

"I should get off of you right now and go get in the shower."

"You should," he said, rolling them over so he was on top of them again, "but you won't." And he was right, only because it felt too good to stop. It wasn't exactly the welcome into his childhood bedroom that Kat expected, but when she finally came, swallowing her moans, she wasn't disappointed. She held his head, digging her fingers into his short hair as he spent himself inside of her. 

****

She couldn't remember the last time she'd sat down to a family dinner. Kat wasn't actually sure she'd ever sat down to dinner at all. Home had been a revolving door of other people--family and associates and her parents' friends. And when it wasn't, it had just been her. With the antique table and family style array of dishes mixed with candles and poinsettias, Kat almost expected dinner to begin with a prayer. She was thankful that it did not. 

She fell into the order of how the dishes were passed--counter clockwise starting with his father at the head of the table going through his grandfather at the other side and ending with his mother, who was up with a bottle of wine. 

"Let me," Kat offered. 

"Oh, no, sweetheart, you're our guest."

"Please." Kat pushed back her chair and stood, taking the bottle to finish the job. 

When she leaned forward to pour into Gabriel's glass he whispered, "Brownie points."

"So, Gabriel hasn't told us how the two of you met. It's all very hush hush," his father said as Kat returned to her seat. 

Kat cut her eyes at Gabriel. They hadn't talked about this, whether they would be telling the actual story of how they met or not. Orientation classes at Starfleet Academy were notoriously large, and there was always some level of attrition. He liked to say he'd noticed her immediately, though, which was utter bullshit. She hadn't noticed him until at least a week and a half in and not on campus. Kat took her seat again, placing her napkin in her lap. 

"It was at a bar, actually," Kat took her time cutting her pork, measuring the reaction from his parents and grandparents. Then she felt Gabriel's arm around her shoulders. 

"Kat was getting hustled in a game of pool, so I stepped in to help."

What actually happened was that Gabriel was trying to hustle Kat, and while he had been successful with previous players, he had not anticipated that she was the more competent shark. It was conduct unbecoming to a Starfleet Cadet for all parties involved, but neither she nor Gabriel would have been engaging in it had anyone else present been as sober as they were. That was the first time they recognized each other as kindred spirits. 

But Kat let him have his stupid moment in front of his parents, and for god knew why, she put her head on his shoulder for a moment and smiled. "My knight in shining armor." Of course, at the same time, she had snaked her hand underneath his napkin and was carefully rubbing him hard, enjoying how he tensed and tried to keep his face composed. "Can you pass the potatoes, sweetie?"

"Mmhm." He coughed, and Kat smiled sweetly as she pulled away from him. 

After dinner, they filtered into a den with an actual, honest to god Christmas tree and a fireplace with a real fire burning as well. It was absolutely surreal. But Gabriel poured her a bourbon and pulled her against him on the sofa, snuggling her in a way he absolutely would not if they were alone. The lazy warmth was nice, though, and there was something magical about the crystal twinkle of the lights in the branches of the tree. Kat leaned her head against his chest. 

"Don't think I'm not going to get you back," he murmured so only she could hear. 

They ended up being the only ones left in the room after an hour, and the fire still crackled. Gabriel shifted Kat in his arms so that he was spooning her from behind. He nuzzled behind her ear. 

"Don't tell me you're falling asleep."

"You're not? This has been exhausting."

"What? Family? Excess of Christmas Spirit?"

"No." Kat glanced up at his face, the firelight reflecting in his bright eyes. "Dating you."

He smiled. "You and I weren't made for this, Kat." 

He was right, and the thing Kat loved about him--because she did love him in her way--was that he would say it. "How long have your parents been married?"

"I don't know. Fifty years?"

"Mm." Half a lifetime. Kat couldn't imagine that kind of commitment to a single person. The human capacity for love and intimacy was so wide.

"Yours?"

"Oh, they weren't, but it was similar. Give or take." she closed her eyes and rested her head back against his chest. "They weren't exclusive, though."

"Well." He pulled her hips back against him. "That explains you. It's not rebellion at all. Just Katrina Cornwell, probably being exactly what her parents want."

She scoffed. But Kat wasn't about to go into that with him. She knew that Gabriel wasn't going to push, even if he was curious. "Rebellion was the obvious answer for you. Even before I saw all of this."

"You know I hate it when you psychoanalyze me."

"I don't know what I expected." Kat felt herself drifting. "But this wasn't it."

She felt Gabriel's lips underneath her ear, meandering, his breath warm. It was lazy, not insistent at all, and Kat twined her fingers in his as she let herself fall asleep with the heat of the fire on her face. 

*****

Just as Kat was beginning to feel somewhat settled, the cousins arrived early on New Year's Eve, and she realized why Gabriel had warned her off of them. Almost everyone in his generation was either as interesting, attractive, affable, or some combination of the three as he was. It was his cousin Bonnie who looped her arm through Kat's as if they were old friends. This was the type of woman that intimidated other women--tall, groomed, well spoken, and Kat also had an inkling that she was smart underneath it all because the self confidence was effortless. 

"You must be Katrina. Granny told us all about you. How did Gabriel manage to bring home a cadet who is also going to be a doctor? How do you manage, Gabriel?" She didn't wait for an answer, though. "Has Aunt Amy shown you the baby pictures yet?"

Gabriel rolled his eyes. "They're your baby pictures too, Bon."

"Yes, and I wasn't an ugly baby," she replied affably. 

"I doubt Kat's interested in a bunch of old pictures." Gabriel took her hand and kissed the back of it. "Are you, Honey?"

Kat turned to him and gave him the sweetest smile she could muster, knowing her dimple would deepen in a way that he would make fun of her about later. "You've been putting me off since we got here, _sweetie_."

"Go play somewhere else, Gabe," Bonnie said.

"And leave you two alone? Not a chance," he muttered, and Kat had to bite the inside of her cheek not to laugh. 

She found herself sitting cross legged on the floor an hour later with Bonnie across from her and Gabirel's head in her lap. A scattering of old padds between them. Gabriel grabbed the bottle of bourbon they'd been passing around and groaned. He loved every bit of the attention--little shit. 

"Oh, this was...I think third grade. Gabe was cast as one of at least fifty other scruffy street urchins instead of Tiny Tim, and he was clearly, insufferably pissed about it." 

Kat tooked the padd Bonnie offered, and Gabriel, eyes still just as piercing but cheeks noticeably chubbier was absolutely pouting. "A Christmas Carol, really?"

"This place is," Gabe said, snatching the padd from her hand, "a little more traditional than Chicago, in case you hadn't noticed." He sat up and grabbed Kat's hand, pulling her to her feet. "You and I need to get ready for the party tonight." He wrapped one of his arms around her shoulders. "And I'm scared to leave you two alone."

Kat let him lead her out of the room and dropped his hand as soon as the door closed behind them. She smirked over her shoulder as she started climbing the stairs. He was following, staring at her ass, which wasn't surprising. But it was hard to tell if he was unsettled by the fact that Kat had just seen almost his entire childhood in pictures. Somehow it seemed so much more intimate than anything else between them. 

"You _were_ an ugly baby." She was laughing as she started to jog up the stairs before he caught her around the waist and picked her up, tossing her over his shoulder. "Gabriel, stop it!"

"Uh huh." He carried her into the bedroom and dropped her on the bed. "Haven't had any complaints since I grew up though."

"There's still time." Kat smirked as she propped herself on her elbows. "What are you really up to? The party isn't for hours."

He smiled as he crawled on top of her. "Hours I plan on keeping you occupied and out of trouble."

She always wondered if the things like that, things he murmured in his dark, softly accented voice captivated other women. Oh, he knew how to tell her exactly what she wanted to hear, to make her pussy clench with his words and her whole body shiver with the crush of his lips against her skin. Gabriel had learned quickly that sweet nothings made Kat laugh at him, and his lines elicited eye rolls. 

"You are so full of shit," she said, wrapping her arms around his neck. 

"And you are trouble. I can't have you down there," he whispered between kisses, "psychoanalyzing my cousins and finding out all of my secrets."

As Kat ran her hands over his shoulder, she shook her head. "You don't have any secrets worth knowing. Besides...your family is exhausting."

"That," he said, falling onto his back beside her, "we can agree on." Gabriel rolled onto his side and pulled Kat onto hers, spooning her lazily. "Let's just take a nap."

Kat smirked. "How many girls did that work on in this very bed?"

"You think my mama would let me have girls up here alone?" he asked, and Kat could feel his smile against the back of her head. "And don't start on the trellis out that window; that was for getting myself out, not getting girls in."

She didn't doubt it, and that it was so simple, so easy was perfectly in character for the pictures she'd just seem of the smiling teen whose ears were slightly too big but who had the mischievous eyes of the man Kat knew. "Of course you climbed out of your bedroom window."

"Oh, and you never snuck out?"

"I didn't need to." Kat laughed lightly. "Some of us didn't have those kinds of restrictions."

"Well, weren't some of us lucky." He idly played with the hem of her shirt. "Tell me about your first time."

Kat closed her eyes as she let herself relax back into his chest. It wasn't something she thought back to often, if at all, but indulging him was the least she could do. "I was nearly sixteen…"

"Nearly sixteen...Jesus, Kat."

"Are you going to let me tell the story or are you going to interject with your puritanical judgment every four or five words?"

"Point taken." He slipped his hand underneath her shirt, and Kat moved without thinking to accommodate. 

"My mother was out of town, and my Mom worked at night, so, mm," Kat hummed as he worked his fingers underneath her bra. "Some friends and I decided to crash this gallery opening, and I managed to bring the artist home."

"Just like that?"

"Oh, you wanted details?"

Gabriel sent a shiver through her when he kissed the back of her neck, sucking at the tender skin. "All of them."

"Well, I flirted with him all night, mostly complimenting his hideously boring holo sculpture, and when I got him home…" she arched into his touch as he pinched her nipple playfully. "We fucked, Gabriel. It wasn't memorable at all; it did the job. And afterwards, I told him he better be out before my Mom got home at dawn."

"Poor bastard."

"Your turn." Kat pressed her ass into him, feeling his erection, half hard and getting harder at the attention. Kat caught his hand to guide it away from her breasts; she was wet and making her desires known, but Gabriel teased at the waistband of her pants. 

He nipped her earlobe. "Don't be so impatient." He slid his palm underneath her panties and simply cupped her cunt as he pressed his thigh between her legs. "It was at the homecoming dance my sophomore year."

"Did you at least buy her a nice corsage?"

"Never said it was my date."

Kat had to will herself not to squirm as he slowly parted her labia with his fingers, just feeling her heat, covering his fingers in her wetness before pushing into her. At the same time, he ground his cock against her ass shamelessly, just making Kat want him all the more. "Scoundrel." 

"We snuck away from the dance into one of the locker rooms--tried to fuck her against the wall… Didn't exactly go well."

Kat's laugh devolved into a moan. Of course he'd tried something like that as a virgin. She thrust her pelvis into the heel of his hand, wanting the pressure against her clit, and he rutted against her ass in time. "Couldn't just get your dick wet like every other kid."

"I got there eventually--sitting, her on top." She could hear the grin in his voice. "Remember our first time?"

"Why? Was it special?"

"Oh," he murmured, slowing his fingers, teasing. "Is that how you're gonna be? You kissed me…"

" _You_ kissed me."

"In the stock room of that bar." His voice was breathy, almost inaudible. He was close, and Kat remembered that night well. She remembered it so well that she was making a mess of his fingers, of her panties and her pants. "Fucked you against the wall that night."

"I was bracing on a box," Kat managed.

"You weren't complaining...fuck…" She felt him coming, losing his rhythm, so Kat grabbed his wrist and held his hand against her, rubbing against it and thinking of his wet and sticky pants until her orgasm bloomed hot between her legs and bright behind her eyelids.

"Wake me up when you finish showering," she breathed as soon as she found her voice again.

"You first," he muttered against her shoulder.

"No way."

Gabriel grunted. Kat wasn't sure when he pulled away. She was only half awake when she heard the sound of the water--always with his water showers--and she didn't remember hearing it turn off. 

*****

Guests had been arriving for the better part of the hour, and Kat was still nowhere to be found. She was going to be pissed at Gabriel for not waking her up--probably doubly pissed because his mother made it clear that black tie excluded their dress uniforms. She hated, as she put it, being put on display "like a goddamned bird." But as he saw her descending the stairs in a black gown whose neck plunged nearly to her hips, the shoulders accented by subtle gems, Kat looked anything but birdlike. He met her at the bottom of the stairs, offering his arm.

"You didn't wake me up," she said through a smile that from a distance would read as adoring. 

"I got called into what can only appropriately be described as an ambush by my mother, grandmother and great grandmother about when I would be proposing to you and which of the heirloom rings I would be using. They thought after the New Year's countdown tonight might be appropriate."

Kat smirked. "I'm not surprised." He led her onto the area serving as a dance floor, and she pressed her cheek to his. "But it's you're problem that I'm that likeable--this was your idea. I am absolutely not taking part in a fake proposal."

"Oh, don't worry. I told them you'd already turned me down."

"Gabriel!" she hissed. 

"Relax, _sweetheart_ ," he teased, knowing it would get to her even more. "We've agreed to revisit the subject after the Academy."

She pulled away so that they were nose to nose. As she raised her eyebrows, her green eyes caught the light. "Oh, did we?"

"We're very much in love."

"I hate you so much."

He caught her lips in a quick kiss. "No, you don't." Gabriel pulled her in closer, so that they were cheek to cheek again and he could whisper, "You look amazing, Kat."

"How amazing?" She wrapped both her arms around his neck--just a young couple in love, dancing close, as if no one else was there. But Kat had a way of teasing him like no one else could, and she was subtly pressing her hips into him. 

"Well, I'm definitely looking forward to getting you out of this." But she knew that already. "But the second we can slip away, I'm going to take you into an empty room and get under the hem of that dress."

"Promises, promises."

Even as she kept her voice playful, Gabriel heard the tiny hitch in her breath. He couldn't help but smile. "Don't play with me, Kat."

"Don't tell me what to do, _darling_." She kissed his cheek. "I think your father is coming to cut in."

That was enough to make him lose the beginnings of the erection Kat had caused. He stepped aside as his father, slightly taller than he, gave a little bow to Kat. 

"May I steal you away, Katrina?"

"Please do, Mr. Lorca." Kat offered him a closed smile, showing her deep dimples, and as they began to dance, she winked at Gabriel over his father's shoulder. 

As they turned, Gabriel made no pretense about staring at Kat's back. The way the dress accentuated her hips and the skirt swayed gently as she moved. He hadn't realized she was such a good dancer--a talent that would serve her at diplomatic functions because she would most certainly reach that tier of command. He'd been lucky to keep up with her so far. 

*****

It was close to midnight and the sort of party that was full of polite laughter in one room and dancing in the other. Kat had lost sight of Gabriel at some point when he'd gone for drinks and never come back. Though, she'd gotten swept up in another round of childhood stories with some of his cousins. As soon as she felt hands on her waist, she knew it was him. 

"I need to borrow Kat."

There were protests, but Gabriel took her hand and pulled her away, through the kitchen and outside. Kat laughed as her heels sank in the grass, the brisk air on her cheeks and arms as he hurried her towards the little lake near the house was a welcome relief from the warmth of the party. The sounds from the house receded as they got to the end of the dock. The thumbnail moon appeared from behind a wisp for a moment, barely a reflection in the water before it was gone again. 

Gabriel draped his jacket around her shoulders without ceremony. It was warm and smelled faintly of his aftershave--scents Kat couldn't name as distinct entities but together with the hint of bourbon would always remind her of him. She felt the weight of his flask in the inner pocket. 

"What's gotten into you?" she asked as they sat. Kat hugged her knees, feeling the chill rising up from the water.

He chuckled. "You really want to stay in there and do a countdown, toast, sing…?"

She laughed, and as he laid back on the boards, he pulled Kat with him. The sky was freckled in the darkness, framed in trees that were probably older than anything else for miles. Kat put her head on Gabriel's shoulder. 

"You can really see the stars out here," Kat said softly as she gazed up.

"Mmhm." 

They lay in silence while midnight came and went with no kiss, no toast to mark it. Gabriel's body was warm beside her, but he watched the sky just as intently. They marked the new year together, looking up toward what they wanted the most.

**Author's Note:**

> I started this at the eleventh hour as a treat for GlassesOfJustice for Chocolate Box, but it quickly became apart to me that it was going to be full length. So, thank you, GlassesOfJustice, for alpha and beta reading your own fic, gifted two months or so late and for trusting me when I brought you an idea based on a trope that I knew very well was not in your stable of likes.


End file.
